The holiday decorations are scattered on the dining room table, gathered from various rooms in the house. There are baskets of clean laundry in the loft (and the hallway and my room). Dirty dishes overflow the sink.
Rather than tackling these tasks today (while caring for an ill toddler), we grabbed shoes.
With new skateboards in hand and nature all around, the kids are playing outdoors. It’s gorgeous in Arizona today. We are going to enjoy it.
Everything else can wait.

I didn’t realize how exhausting baking every day (well, nearly every day) December 2010 was until I didn’t do it this year.
I just pulled down “the baking box” for its location in the pantry. For the past 12 months, bits and pieces of it have been used. But what I found – coconut, cocoa, icing, icing tips, sprinkles – remained until I just dumped much of it in the trash.
We did bake this year, don’t get me wrong. And I can’t wait to try out my new cake pop maker …

Wow. If you’re a parent like me, the house looks like a tornado came through, there are dirty dishes everywhere, and dozens of new clothes and a few toys are to be put away. You know what? I’m on vacation. They kids can play with their new toys, stay in PJs all day and eat the leftovers in the kitchen. We’ll clean up tomorrow. Or not.
I hope you and yours have a very joyous post-Christmas week and a happy New Year!

I love reading lists. I love to see the names of books I’ve yet to read – and yet to find time to read. But as a mom, I’m always on the hunt for options for the kids too. This information came to us this week from Mesa’s Cardon Children’s Medical Center. In case your kids are already “bored” during break, or you need a last-minute gift, these are great ideas.
Looking for a last minute gift for a child? Or just want to keep your children busy in a constructive …

My kids are at home with daddy this week as I finish writing a few stories.
To keep them busy, and from arguing, I handed them tape, scissors (gasp!), wrapping paper, and the gifts we’ve made for grandparents this morning.
The fun part? They realized they had to work together to wrap the gifts. The not-so-fun-part, my 6-year-old was being hyper critical of the job she was doing.
“It’s not pretty. They’re going to hate it.”
I assured her they wouldn’t. I’ve never had my kids help wrap gifts – mainly because I’m such …

Ah, school lunch.
It’s been topic of many jokes, tough scrutiny and endless questions.
Lately, it’s also been in the headlines because of growing problem with children facing obesity and diabetes at a young age. It’s tough to get kids to eat healthy. And with many children at school now for breakfast and lunch, many school leaders have taken this to heart. Even Michelle Obama is leading an effort to clean up what’s served in school cafeterias.
But according to a recent L.A. Times story, the kids are not only passing on the …

Each year, I try to remember and give my children’s teachers a gift. Most years, it’s a coffeehouse gift card. Sometimes, we make it personal. I try to remember the after-school care instructors and bus driver, too.
But this year, we’re going homemade. Inspired by my middle child’s desire to make holiday goodies, we’ve made more than three dozen chocolate “pops” and chocolate covered preztels. The latter was decided after a friend called Friday exclaiming, “I have chocolate and preztels. Want to get together?” We had eight kids at the house …

Sometimes, life catches up with you.
That’s been very true the last few weeks. So this is me, apologizing, for being silent on the blog.
Do you blog? Do you find you have dozens of ideas about what to write, but sometimes fail to get them down? Or do you start to write and then think, “Why would anyone care about this?”
Or do you actually write it, only to have your computer eat it?
Maybe it’s just blog burnout?
I think I’ve had a bit of all of that the last few weeks, not …

Last year, I thought it would be fun to bake my way through the holidays. My daughter – then nearly 6 – and I baked something just about every night from Dec. 1 through Christmas Eve. OK, so we averaged baking every night. On weekends we would catch up by doing two or three things!
This year I know that’s not possible. First, I haven’t started. Second, my now 16-month-old is a little too mobile and demanding for me to spend that much time in the kitchen. I’d much rather just …

Monday night when we arrived home, I pulled out a 9′ inflatable, holiday polar bear – to put up in my living room. Last year we didn’t put it up – I was afraid my then-infant would be smothered by it.
Now she’s the one smothering it! She’s in love, completely! We bought the polar bear several years ago after Christmas. My son loved it. My now-6-year-old, not so much. In fact, it freaked her out so much that we had to take it down.
All this we do for fun in …